40 Fun Facts About Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Which woman did both Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln court years before the two men debated in 1858?

Mary Todd had Douglas among her suitors before she married Lincoln in 1842, so the rivals had competed for a wife long before they competed for a Senate seat.

How did Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas reach the platform for their 1858 debate at Galesburg's Old Main?

Through a window is how both men stepped onto the stage, where the abolitionist-founded school had hung a banner declaring itself for Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln mocked a Stephen Douglas argument as soup made by boiling the shadow of which starved bird?

A pigeon that had starved to death, Lincoln said at Quincy, would cast a shadow about as nourishing as Douglas's claim that settlers could still keep slavery out.

Which nickname did Stephen Douglas, a foot shorter than Abraham Lincoln, carry into their 1858 debates?

Little Giant fit a man of five feet four who dominated the Senate; Lincoln, at six feet four, towered over him on every platform.

What happened to Stephen Douglas's Senate seat after his 1858 debates with challenger Abraham Lincoln?

He kept it, winning a third term by 54 votes to 46 in January 1859, even though Lincoln's side had drawn more votes across the state.

In which Midwestern state did Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas hold all their 1858 debates for a Senate seat?

Illinois hosted every debate, one in each of its congressional districts where the two men had not already spoken.

Which famous abolitionist did Stephen Douglas name at the Charleston debate as an ally of Abraham Lincoln?

Frederick Douglass, the senator claimed, was telling friends of Black equality to rally around Lincoln, a charge meant to paint Lincoln as a radical.

The region where Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debated at Jonesboro is nicknamed after which country?

Egypt, or Little Egypt, was hostile ground for an antislavery man, and Douglas boasted that he would trot Lincoln down there to repeat his views.

Abraham Lincoln's 1858 warning that a house divided against itself cannot stand borrowed its image from which source?

The Bible gave Lincoln the line, from the Gospel of Mark, and Douglas went on quoting the speech back as proof that Lincoln wanted war between North and South.

By what title, earned in an earlier job, did Abraham Lincoln address Stephen Douglas throughout their 1858 debates?

Judge was the title, a relic of the seat Douglas took on his state's supreme court in 1841, and Lincoln used it debate after debate instead of Senator.

How many times did Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas meet for a formal debate during the 1858 Senate campaign?

Seven debates, each about three hours long, ran from August to October, and crowds of more than ten thousand turned out for several of them.

Which founding document did Abraham Lincoln argue in 1858, against Stephen Douglas, covered Black Americans too?

The Declaration of Independence meant all men, Lincoln held, while Douglas answered that its signers had been speaking of white men alone.

Which Supreme Court ruling did Abraham Lincoln dare Stephen Douglas to square with letting settlers vote on slavery?

Dred Scott v. Sandford had held that slavery could not be barred from the territories, so Douglas replied that settlers could simply refuse to pass the laws slavery needed.

In which state was Abraham Lincoln born in a one-room log cabin, decades before he debated Stephen Douglas?

Kentucky was where Lincoln's life began in 1809, and both debaters were newcomers to the state they fought over: Douglas had come west from New England.

What carried full reports of the 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas to newspapers across the East?

The telegraph reached everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains by then, so papers far from the prairie could print the speeches soon after, and both men knew they were addressing the nation.

What did Abraham Lincoln do with transcripts of his debates against Stephen Douglas before the 1860 election?

Published them as a book in 1860, the transcripts sold well and helped Lincoln win his party's nomination for the White House.

What did Stephen Douglas do when Fort Sumter was attacked, months after losing the presidency to Abraham Lincoln?

Douglas backed the war effort so firmly that he urged Lincoln to call up 200,000 men rather than 75,000, then went home to rally the Midwest before dying that June.

Who actually chose between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas for the Senate seat they debated over in 1858?

The state legislature picked senators in those days, so Lincoln and Douglas were really campaigning for their parties' candidates for the statehouse.

What arrangement of speakers defines Lincoln–Douglas debate, the American high school contest named for the 1858 rivals?

One-on-one, like the original pair, the format is also called values debate for its stress on logic, ethics and philosophy.

In which city did Abraham Lincoln give his House Divided speech on being nominated in 1858 to face Stephen Douglas?

Springfield was the state capital, and Lincoln spoke in its statehouse on the evening his party named him, as the only speaker on the bill.

Which city hosted the 1860 convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln for president, where rival Stephen Douglas lived?

Chicago gave Lincoln a friendly home crowd, and he won on the third ballot, helped by the fame his 1858 debates had brought him.

Which doctrine, written into his 1854 law on the territories, did Stephen Douglas defend against Abraham Lincoln?

Popular sovereignty meant letting the white settlers of each territory vote slavery in or out, which Lincoln said would spread it across the nation.

Which law, written by Stephen Douglas, pulled Abraham Lincoln back into politics to oppose the spread of slavery?

The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 let settlers in two new territories decide on slavery, and the anger it stirred in the North gave Lincoln a cause and a new party.

Which deal barring slavery from northern territories did Stephen Douglas's 1854 law repeal, to Abraham Lincoln's fury?

The Missouri Compromise had shut slavery out of lands north of a set line since 1820, and Lincoln called its repeal the first step toward making slavery national.

In which northern town did Stephen Douglas give Abraham Lincoln the answer that Southern Democrats branded a heresy?

Freeport gave its name to the doctrine that settlers could shut slavery out by refusing to pass laws protecting it, a stand that cost Douglas the South in 1860.

Which change to the Constitution ended the system under which Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas ran for the Senate?

The Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, let voters choose their senators directly, a reform the Populists had demanded since the 1890s.

Under which political banner had Abraham Lincoln spent most of his career before facing Stephen Douglas as a Republican?

The Whig Party was Lincoln's home until it fell apart in the 1850s, and its former members were the swing voters both he and Douglas chased in 1858.

Which president, a fellow Democrat, was feuding with Stephen Douglas while Douglas debated Abraham Lincoln in 1858?

James Buchanan had broken with Douglas over admitting a western territory as a slave state, so Douglas fought Lincoln with his own party's president against him.

Which skill, then called phonography, let reporters capture every word of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858?

Shorthand notes were handed to runners in mid-debate and rushed to the next train, where they were written out in full on the ride to the big-city printers.

Which news service, then about a decade old, sent the 1858 Lincoln–Douglas debates to papers across the East?

The Associated Press, formed by New York dailies in 1846, could send one report to many cities at once, which turned a state race into a national event.

Which vice president did Southern Democrats run in 1860 rather than back Stephen Douglas against Abraham Lincoln?

John C. Breckinridge carried most of the South, while Douglas drew the second-highest total of votes yet took electoral votes from just two states.

Which New York City venue heard Abraham Lincoln take a Stephen Douglas remark as the text of a famous 1860 speech?

Cooper Union heard Lincoln quote Douglas on the founders and then argue that they had meant to restrict slavery, a speech some historians credit with making him president.

Which school's Old Main is among the few surviving buildings to have hosted an 1858 Lincoln–Douglas debate?

Knox College, founded by abolitionists in Galesburg, hosted its debate in October 1858, and Old Main is now a National Historic Landmark.

Which chief justice, author of an 1857 slavery ruling, did Abraham Lincoln attack alongside Stephen Douglas in 1858?

Roger Taney, Lincoln charged at the final debate, had joined Douglas in treating Black Americans as mere property and in preparing the public mind to accept it.

Abraham Lincoln likened a Stephen Douglas evasion to the dark cloud squirted by which sea creature?

A cuttlefish hides behind a cloud of its own ink, said Lincoln, who also accused Douglas of turning a horse chestnut into a chestnut horse.

Which proslavery state charter did Stephen Douglas defy his own party to oppose, months before debating Abraham Lincoln?

The Lecompton Constitution would have brought in a new slave state against its settlers' wishes, and Douglas called it a fraud on his own doctrine.

Which rival beat Abraham Lincoln to a Senate seat in 1855, three years before Lincoln challenged Stephen Douglas?

Lyman Trumbull won after Lincoln told his own supporters to switch to him so that an antislavery man would take the seat, a favor that helped Lincoln get the 1858 nomination.

Which elder statesman's endorsement of Stephen Douglas was the October surprise of his 1858 race with Abraham Lincoln?

John J. Crittenden swayed swing voters who had once shared Lincoln's old party, and Lincoln felt the endorsement did his campaign serious harm.

Which early law banning slavery in the Midwest did Abraham Lincoln cite against Stephen Douglas as the founders' policy?

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 showed, Lincoln argued, that the founders meant to limit slavery's spread, the opposite of what Douglas claimed for them.

Which town hosted the first of the 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, drawing some 12,000 people?

Ottawa opened the series on August 21, and Lincoln warned there that letting each territory vote would make slavery national and permanent.